Hormonal Havoc

I am enjoying the luxury of being off work. It is marvelous to be able to stay in bed with my coffee, my book and my bifocals. I love the feel of my sheets against my skin, most especially when I look at the clock and see that it reads a late morning hour. I am sloth personified.

But persistent inactivity comes with a price. Getting on my loathsome scale would be like trying to bludgeon a cadaver. Overkill. I don't make it a habit to jump on it these days because the fact that my jeans now cause me serious internal discomfort is all the information that I need. Which brings me to a peculiar event that happened this weekend.

Several times over five or so days, I felt the weirdest flutterings in my abdomen. Convinced that my pants were tight enough to rearrange my internal organs, I changed into my sweats to give my bloated belly a break. And still, there was the fluttering. It was most pronounced when I was idle so, as you can imagine, it was nearly nonstop.

Somewhere around the third day, I had an awful epiphany. The last time that I experienced alien feelings in my abdomen, a baby popped out five months later.

PREGNANCY.

Sweet baby Jesus, NO!

Naw, couldn't be. I was just being paranoid. My husband has been snipped for twelve years and there was no way his boys could have knit together again? Right? RIGHT?! Over the holidays, we heard a story about a friend who had submitted to a vasectomy YEARS earlier and who, when asked if he and his new wife planned to have children, answered by saying that if such an event were to happen, there had better be a bloody star hanging over their house. I understood his sentiments exactly.

As I descended into a controlled hysteria, I took a mental inventory.

Bloating? Check.
Weight gain? Check. Check.
Ginormous, tender boobs? Um...check.
Water retention from hell? Check.
Nausea? Does hung over count? Check.

Oh my god! Alcohol has flowed freely over this holiday period. Not good.

So this weekend, with skeptical but indulgent husband in tow, I went to my local Wal-Mart pharmacy and plucked an early pregnancy test off the shelf.

"You're not pregnant", he said.

"I had better not be", I whispered through clenched teeth as I slipped into the ladies' bathroom.

After following the instructions, I sat on the potty waiting for the lines to appear in the window. For those three minutes, I had a serious conversation with God.

I will be forty two in February. The thought of being pregnant makes me want to run screaming in the other direction. Please understand that we would not view this as a miracle. And yes, we read about the seventy something woman having a child and thought that was an abomination. We also heard about Mrs. Duggar birthing baby #18. Are you bored or something? I mean, I could understand how lackluster it must be to be in the same job for thousands of years but do you think you might be just a tad indiscriminate when sprinkling your fertility dust? I know that I was not a model teenager but haven't I paid that debt? By the time we finish with Olivia, I'll have had THREE teenage daughters. THREE. Which is like waking up every morning and having your face plunged forcefully into a toilet. For goodness sakes, have mercy. Listen, please don't get me wrong. I am eternally grateful to have met my husband. My world revolves around our marriage and I am keenly aware of how fortunate I am to get to spend the rest of my life with him but honestly, we don't need any souvenirs of our love. Sure, it would have been great to have a child together a decade ago and sometimes, we find ourselves thinking about that but then a call from the police or a note home from a teacher launches us like a rocket back to reality. Right now, we are able to see the light illuminating an empty nest at the end of the tunnel and we like it that way. So, please try to understand that we already have enough anecdotal stories about our life to last forever. We did meet on eHarmony, after all. There's no need for us to be at a cocktail party with dark circles under our eyes and baby vomit on our shoulders telling people about the miracle of spontaneous vasectomy reversal. Amen."

As it turned out, the test read negative. I am not pregnant. Halle-fricken-lujah.

I am perimenopausal.

I already knew this. What I didn't know is that in addition all of the sterotypical symptoms: hot flashes, night sweats, etc., etc., I can add phantom baby kicks, amplified PMS and intense fatigue to the list of goodies that comes with being a woman in her forties. Yeah me.

But I am not pregnant (clouds parting, trumpets playing) so I guess that star better find another home.

Everyone Deserves a White Christmas

It is snowing all over the country.

Except here.

Record amounts of the white stuff is falling in the Pacific Northwest, the Midwest and the East Coast. Even Las Vegas and California have received record amounts. Not us, though. We've got the big goose egg. Zip. Nada.

The local weather forecasters are full of doom and gloom about how we are going to be pummeled by the weather. They raise their voices in excitement and speculate about how terrible it is going to be. Dire warnings. IT COULD BE LIFE THREATENING. Run to the hardware store for a generator. Stock up on canned food and water. Prepare for the worst.

And nothing. Just another cold and sunny day in the pseudo south.

Yesterday, Olivia complained that I had broken my promise to help her build a snowman. She thinks that I am personally responsible for the weather. Apparently, I just need to get on the phone and call Jack Frost himself because she is on winter holiday and WHERE THE HELL IS THE SNOW?

I relocated to the south specifically to avoid harsh weather. I hate the winter. I grew up in Canada and had my fill of ice covered windshields, slippery sidewalks and day upon day of bleak gray skies. When I first moved to the US, I landed in San Diego, which is like being on holiday all year round. It was April and I didn't experience a lick of precipitation until the following February when the disorienting sound of rain on the roof woke me up out of a sound sleep. I used to send granules of beach sand in the letters that I sent home to my mum. I remember waking most mornings with my windows open and being able to smell the ocean. The weather in SoCal is quite possibly the most perfect that I have ever experienced and there are days that I can't understand why I ever left.

Except that paradise can sometimes get a little boring. Sure, the sunny weather makes it hard to be a fat and lazy sloth since it practically screams for one to get outside and exercise but there is something to be said for the slow death of fall or the freshness of spring. I like the change of seasons. I even look forward to snow under very controlled circumstances. I want it to fall on Christmas Eve, when there is no work, no school and no pressure to drive. I want it to be those gentle, big ass snowflakes that you can catch on your tongue. I want it to blanket the area and make it a lovely winter wonderland so that Christmas morning is presents, a cozy fire, peppermint laced hot chocolate and cold, rosy cheeks.

Then I want it to completely melt, disappear and have the sun warm everything up to Harley riding weather by Boxing Day. And it's not to come back until next Christmas Eve. I really don't think that I'm being unreasonable.

The weathermen were calling for a mixture of snow and rain today which had Olivia nearly rapturous. Predictably, that forecast has been modified and now, there isn't a single snowflake in the foreseeable future.

I think I'll tell her that Santa wanted to golf and leave it at that.

Holiday Spirit

I am not finished with my Christmas shopping.

This is so not like me.

This weekend, we hiked over to our local Wal-Mart trying to get the necessary ingredients for Christmas dinner and to pick up some stocking stuffers. It was a freaking zoo and there is no denying that this season brings out the absolute worst in some people. It seems that every single rude and graceless tool on the planet crawls out from underneath their rock at least once a year and for some reason, as discussed before, I am the person they find. To the elderly lady in the stationery aisle whose hair smelled like rotting olives and who used her bony hip to violently move me out of her way as she took the last Crayola Disney Princess Color Wonder package:

Be grateful that you qualify to collect social security because I am Canadian, a former left defense hockey player and respect for the number of years you have terrorized the earth is the only thing that stopped me from laying you out flat in that aisle. Also, that shade (Ronald McDonald orange) that you are using in your hair is not complimentary to your skin tone. I'm just saying...

To the extremely large man who parked his motorized cart on a diagonal in one of the toy aisles and who sat there, clearly conscious of but not caring a whit for the bottle neck that he was causing:

It's bad enough that you are a thirty five year old man who has eaten himself to the size of Hummer. To make yourself even more repugnant, you come to the store unbathed, in sweat pants that haven't seen a washing machine since the Reagan administration and with something unidentifiable lurking in your mangy beard. There are truly disabled people that need that cart, mister, so the least you could do as you accelerate past the amputee with the crutches is yield the bloody right of way.

I'm thinking that next year, I'm going to make all of my holiday purchases online. Things can get pretty heated on eBay but at least I can shop in my jammies with a coffee in my hand an no possibility of walking into someone else's fart fog.

If All Else Fails, Try Pot

Lately, several of my women friends have found themselves in committed relationships after walking through the fires of hell the pain of divorce. One girl has waited sixteen years to find her Prince Charming and thanks to eHarmony, she is engaged to be married this summer. Another has walked a similar path to me in that she married a gay man and spent numerous years trying to sort through that mess. Today, she is engaged but with no immediate plans to marry. Both of them have asked me for advice on blending families. I recommended lots of alcohol and a good medical plan with a psychotherapy rider.

Like death and taxes, what is absolutely certain in middle age is that we all come into our new relationships with a little baggage. We have lived. We have emotional scars, some of which have healed nicely and others that need more time. We have children and ex-spouses and we've learned that the white picket dream is a fluid concept with many variations.

When Dallas first dipped his toe back into the dating pool, he was determined that any woman with whom he would have a serious relationship would not have children. Of course, this narrowed his options to jail bait and the geriatric crowd so eventually, he revised his criteria. I started my dating adventures with a list of twenty or so characteristics that I believed the ideal man would have to possess. You know where most lists end up, right? Yeah.

And then I met Dallas, who was everything that I had asked for and more. One day, we decided to ride off into the sunset and live happily ever after. In our short but intense journey, I have learned a few things that others might find useful.

1. The relationship is paramount. Period. Dallas and I put ours before anything else: children, work, family, friends, EVERYTHING. If we are okay then the other parts of our life seem to be manageable. Believe me, we have struggled sometimes with this concept because it feels counter intuitive to put your own needs before those of your children. However, I think that seeing an example of a respectful, loving, functional marriage is one of the best gifts we could ever give our children.

2. Present a united front. This sort of goes hand in hand with the one above. Dallas and I are careful to consult each other in most parenting decisions and as it turns out, we've struck a pretty good balance. I am Hitler. He is Bambi. Together, we are extremely effective. He convinced me that my 11 year old would benefit from being tucked in at night. He was right. My son looks forward to those few minutes of conversation more than just about anything else in his day. I tried to convince Dallas to beat his kids until they bled but he thought that might be too harsh and chose instead to take baby steps and hold them accountable for their behaviour. It worked wonders. Teenage daughter didn't miss a day of school this semester and manchild secured himself a great, steady job.

3. Understand that sometimes, ex-spouses suck. They do and there is likely nothing that you can do about it. They are often vindictive, mean-spirited, inappropriate, emotionally stunted, intellectually challenged and generally, a giant pain in the ass. Usually though, the fight is not worth it. When my children go with their father, they are not bathed, their teeth are not brushed, they stay up all hours of the night parked in front of a television set and they are fed mostly potato chips and Oreo cookies. But they come home alive and while I think that they deserve better from their dad, in the big picture of their lives it just doesn't matter. Dallas said, "Ninety nine percent of their time is spent with us. Why get bent out of shape because they spend one percent of their lives living like wolves?"

Finally, walk into the light, my friend. When you blend two families together, remember that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. It just might appear to be way off in the distance and faint. But take heart. Time will march on, children will age and one day in the foreseeable future, there will be an empty nest. Our job as parents is to take our vitamins, eat well, exercise regularly and get plenty of sleep so that the day the youngest takes flight, we'll be fit enough to once again have sex on the couch.

Changing the Litter Box

The Saturday right after Thanksgiving, our male cat, Nate, shot out our garage door and into the night. Dallas and I shrugged and decided not to give chase since the temperature was dropping and our cat always came home when he got cold enough.

Except this time.

Sunday, I left for Denver on a business trip and there was no sign of Nate. I had a sick feeling in the pit of my belly. Driving out to the airport, there was a grey tabby laying by the side of the road. I turned the car around and went back for a second look. I was unaware that I was holding my breath until I let it out in one big, wet, exhale upon the realization that the dead animal was not Nate.

It took the kids about three days to notice that our boy was gone and they were understandably upset. I was heartbroken, convinced that Nate had met with something either bigger, faster or hungrier. The weather had been uncharacteristically harsh and I felt that there was no way a domesticated cat would be able to survive. Dallas and I both began taking different routes through the neighbourhood in an effort to spot him. We went for short walks equipped with cat food and a flash light. I stepped out on to our front walk every night for a week and called him. After ten days, I gave up.

Dylan, on the other hand, was convinced that he had eyeballed Nate with another cat. He claimed to have seen him a few streets over in the yard of an empty house but by the time we got over there to have a look one night, there was no sign of either cat. Strangely enough though, the house that Dylan led us to was an exact replica of ours. I felt the smallest tingle of hope which trickled away with each passing day.

I began to think about visiting our local humane society to pick out a new kitten. Dallas, however, vehemently disagreed. "We'll have three cats when Nate comes home", he said in the beginning and then as time passed, "I'm not ready".

In my entire life, I have only ever been attached to one other pet. When I was eight, my parents came home with a miniature schnauzer we named Nicky. She was the runt of the litter, lucky to be alive and I loved that animal more than my sister, Shaun Cassidy and Laura Secord chocolate. When my parents divorced, my mum took Nicky down to New Brunswick to live on the farm with my grandparents. Nearly ten years later, when I was in college and hadn't laid eyes on Nicky in years, I sobbed upon hearing that she had died.

So late last week, while in the throes of PMS irrationality, I walked into the laundry room to find that the litter box needed to be changed. This is Dallas's job, not mine. I have a well developed gag reflex and I simply cannot manage to change the waste receptacle at the end of the AUTOMATIC litter box. Yes, you read that correctly and if you have cats this could possibly be the best thing to happen to you. EVER. Anyway, I had mentioned the smelly situation to Dallas the night before and again this night but it had slipped his mind and he was comfortably in bed. Irritated because I cook and I clean and I launder and I grocery shop and I work and I whine, whine, whine, I was apoplectic that to add insult to injury, I WAS GOING TO HAVE TO CHANGE THE BLASTED LITTER BOX!!

Furious, I put on a pair of latex gloves, grabbed a few Wal-Mart bags and began dry heaving. After double bagging the used receptacle, I banged open the garage door, walked to the side of the house and threw the contents into the bin. I stomped back through the garage closing the overhead and into the house, slamming the door behind me. I sighed noisily as I picked up dirty clothes and threw them into the laundry basket. I heard our female cat meowing over and over again like a bloody lamb bleating, wanting to get into the other bathroom where manchild was having a shower. "Jesus", I thought, "She is so freaking needy". Maddeningly, the meowing continued. I wrenched open our bedroom door, intending to do God-knows-what about the noise when I realized the sounds were coming from the garage. I opened the door and Nate flew inside and ran directly for his food bowl in the kitchen.

"NATE!!!"

Dallas got out of bed and we both made our way into the kitchen. We cracked open a can of wet food and watched as he gulped it down. He was scary thin, somewhat ragged and the tip of his tail was sore but our boy was ALIVE.

This week, he has eaten like a horse and slept like a newborn. His personality has either changed or he isn't fully recovered. He has taken to sleeping on our bed, which he never used to do and he is a much more affectionate cat. I cannot express how happy I am that he found his way home.

Merry Christmas Kiwi

My husband has submitted his Christmas list and at the very top were two items that gave me pause.

ANZAC biscuits and Louise cake.

Since I grew up in the northern hemisphere, I had no idea what either of these baked goods were and after my aesthetically dismal but tasty experience with Pavlova, I was a bit concerned about my ability to fulfill his wishes.

The first obstacles were the measurements. What the heck does 90 grams of butter look like? Well, according to a handy online converter, it's 18.9 teaspoons, 0.40 cups or 6.3 tablespoons. For someone like me who is slightly anal retentive, these numbers made my head explode.

I am a pretty good cook and I usually bake well but not because I'm an intuitive savant in the kitchen. I CAN READ. I follow directions. I am precise in the measurements and I follow the recipe to the letter. If it calls for folding, I fold. I level the flour in the measuring cup. I set the timer. I have NOTHING in common with those who reach in, pat the top of a cake and know it needs another few minutes. I am the type that goes through an entire can of Crisco trying to make the perfect pie crust.

I have cried over pie crust.

To make matters worse, I come from a family of women who are culinary goddesses.

Effortlessly.

They are able to cook AND carry on a conversation. They own aprons. They also sew, make elaborate scrapbooks for their kids, style their hair in the mornings AND work outside of the home. I am not even close to being in their league.

But I digress.

I was able to overcome my OCD tendencies in regard to the metric measurements only to be waylaid by the damn ingredients. Unsweetened dessicated coconut? Golden syrup? I contemplated just using regular fancy coconut and honey or corn syrup but these goodies were on Dallas's Christmas list as in "Baby, seriously. All I want for Christmas is ANZAC biscuits and Louise cake", which kind of makes it hard to skimp on pesky details like a FLAVOUR PROFILE he's known and loved for forty years.

I went online in search of recipes. We called his Grammie Rhodie in Papatoetoe. There was no getting around it. The signature taste of the cookies was reliant upon a single ingredient.

In blog after blog, I was told that the crunchy yet chewy goodness could only be achieved with Lyle's. Yeah, so twenty plus bucks later, I had ordered six bottles of the stuff which was probably overkill considering the recipe only calls for two tablespoons. I plan on using golden syrup in pecan pie, in my butter tarts and every other place I had once used corn syrup because OH MY FREAKING TASTEBUDS, this stuff is liquid gold.

And the cookies are all kinds of buttery, caramely, lick-your-fingers fabulous. Dallas has been having them for a snack with his morning tea and since they have a cup of oatmeal in them, this is probably acceptable somewhere.

Great Advice

I was sent this video by a client of mine (thanks Lou!) and had to share it with you. I'm sure some of you may have seen it but it was the first time that I had been exposed to the Fruitcake Lady.

I would love nothing more than to bottle her up and unleash her on the children in our house.

I believe Jay Leno was the first one to feature her on the Tonight Show so my apologies to NBC for this lowly forum.

Unbalanced

I am mad.

Not of the raving lunatic type (although I'm sure that a case could be made) but of the rabid dog kind. I'm angry. At everyone and everything.

I am a mostly reasonable personality and while I have occasion to sometimes be high strung, most of the time I am able to talk myself off the ledge because I know that I am choosing to feel this way.

But one week out of every month, I am not rational. And as I have aged, this lack of control over my emotions seems to have worsened. My children keenly understand this shift in my behaviour and as they put on their kid gloves and their measured voices with me, I want to scream. There is something deeply disturbing about my six year old child being more judicious than I am.

My husband tiptoes around me whispering sweet nothings like, "whatever you like, my love" or "you know best" or "your bottom looks tiny in those pants". This weekend, he did really sexy things like vacuum the entire downstairs and gas, wash and vacuum my car. He is a saint and it hacks me off that I'm the only unhinged one in this relationship.

So, the cerebral self in an effort to slay the premenstrual dragon, thought it might be therapeutic to list the many factors contributing to the current state of mind. In the spirit of the holiday season, I thought it might be nice to hum it to a popular Christmas carol.

On the twelfth day of Christmas,
the universe gave to me:
12 defective chair backs,
11 moldy dog toothpastes,
10 extra pounds,
9 bathroom baseboards a-peeling,
8 daily loads of laundry,
7 days too cold to ride,
6 unreasonable buyers,
5 UNGRATEFUL KIDS!!!
4 letters from the IRS ,
3 nights of broken sleep,
2 crazy ex spouses,
And one cat missing for a week!

Bah humbug.